The present invention relates to the technical field of touchscreen-based electronics. Touchscreen-based electronics, in both a portable and stationary environment, can include a wide array of devices such as: personal and notebook computers, netbooks, ATMs, POS or information kiosks, ticket-dispensing machines, portable media players, personal digital assistants, monitors, televisions, tablets, branded i-devices and Mobile Internet Devices or MIDs, such as multi-media and Internet-enabled Smart phones; although this list is not intended to be exhaustive. Touchscreens allow users of these devices to input commands, engage in data entry or otherwise control an actionable object or on-screen graphic through touch—typically by finger, thumb or stylus contact. The touchscreen senses the coordinates of the “touch,” through any of the varying means of touchscreen-based technologies, including, but not suggestive of limitation to, those that are capacitive-and-resistive governed. The coordinate data registered via “touch-sensing” can then be relayed to the device's microcontroller (or processor) for related processing and can further see execution by software associated with applications running on an electronic-touchscreen in order to initiate a desired action.
Coordinate-data determination at the point of contact, of course, is technology specific. With resistive touchscreen technologies, for example, the touchscreen panel is comprised of several layers; notably two electrically-conductive membranes that are typically separated by an extremely thin non-conductive gap. When pressure is applied to the flexible topmost layer, contact is made with its conductive pairing, effectively completing “the circuit” at the point of contact and thus, engaging the related hardware for specific coordinate-data determination and related processing.
In a capacitive-sensor system, the touchscreen panel, typically glass coated with a material such as indium tin oxide to enhance conductivity across a sensor device, acts as a sensor. In preamble, a biological property of the human body is its ability to carry and store an electrical charge—a case in reference being the electrons contained in your finger. The capacitive-sensor system utilizes a conductive input, usually a user's finger, to register touch (and is ideally capable of collectively tracking 10 or more fingers concurrently). Finger contact with the capacitive-based touchscreen panel alters the electrostatic field, which is then interpreted by the processor and device's software, such as any pre-installed input-driven software, translating this touch into a gesture or command. Respective capacitive touchscreens feature electrostatic-field monitoring circuitry, with points that can be arranged in the form of a grid. Each point on the grid is designed to register changes in electrostatic fields and process them accordingly, making multi-touch and multi-gestures possible.
Input-driven software includes touch-requisite applications such as those fueling an ever-growing list of smart-phone “apps”. In associative transition, despite mobile apps being wildly popular, a direct consequence of the pocket-sized footprint of portable gadgets may see a user experience that is greatly attenuated by significant limitations of control of an actionable object or “an on-screen graphic”. Contributing factors may include the device's small screen size and tiny on-screen control-keys, the size and sensitivity of the positioning of a user's fingers, the diversity and changing landscape of the soft keys and the unnatural fit for many of controlling or navigating an actionable object whilst the touchscreen-enabled hardware is concurrently grasped. In the ease of gaming applications on portable hardware, where control of an actionable object or player for a particular gaming title becomes more intricate, these limitations of control can be exacerbated.
The imprecise nature of traditional, graphic-based touchscreen controllers of an actionable object may be especially apparent when console-born gaming titles are adapted to the small screen (pocket gaming), and controllers and control efficacy between both platforms can be compared based on a user's experience. Even simple left, right, upward and downward navigation that is engaged by a touchscreen's soft buttons or keys, in a traditional manner, may prove difficult to execute in certain environments. Peer-based, business or SMS (Short Message Service) testing in data-entry applications, additionally, can suffer from a tiny-portable footprint, where the “hunt and peck”, for example, may not always be as productive as first intended. With one's finger size often bigger than the soft keys or buttons it was designed for, this can lend itself to accidental “key bleed” between neighboring keys—that is, with neighboring keys accidentally being touched in data-entry execution over the intended ones or, similarly, a plurality of keys accidentally being touched concurrently, instead of an intended single-key execution.
Circumstances may arise where it would be desirable to operate the soft buttons displayed on the touchscreen from a distance or using an alternate input device; in both a portable and stationary (notwithstanding its larger form factor) environment.